We begin consideration of the Bill today with schedule 9, to which no amendments have been tabled.

40, in clause94,page55,line13,leave out ‘the day on which’ and insert ‘when’ —(Victoria Atkins.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
Clause 94, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 95 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 96

I think we have come to a natural conclusion.

Liam Byrne: The Minister says she does not want to enter into a debate. I kindly remind her that she in a debate. The debate is called—

Order. Liam Byrne has the floor. If he wishes to give way, he may do so.

Order. We have a point of order—which, in due course, the good offices of Hansard will resolve—as to what was said by the right hon. Gentleman and how the Minister interpreted it. At the moment, we are dealing with clause 98 and Mr Liam Byrne has the floor. As he wishes, he can give way or continue.

This might seem like a long day, but it is still morning. On that note, we will proceed.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 160, in clause109,page61,line18,at end insert—
‘(3) The transfer falls within this subsection if the transfer—
(a) is based on an adequacy decision (see section 74),
(b) if not based on an adequacy decision, is based on there being appropriate safeguards (see section 75), or
(c) if not based on an adequacy decision or on there being appropriate safeguards, is based on special circumstances (see section 76 as amended by subsection (5)).
(4) A transfer falls within this subsection if—
(a) the intended recipient is a person based in a third country that has (in that country) functions comparable to those of the controller or an international organisation, and
(b) the transfer meets the following conditions—
(i) the transfer is strictly necessary in a specific case for the performance of a task of the transferring controller as provided by law or for the purposes set out in subsection (2),
(ii) the transferring controller has determined that there are no fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject concerned that override the public interest necessitating the transfer,
(iii) the transferring controller informs the intended recipient of the specific purpose or purposes for which the personal data may, so far as necessary, be processed, and
(iv) the transferring controller documents any transfer and informs the Commissioner about the transfer on request.
(5) The reference to law enforcement purposes in subsection (4) of section 76 is to be read as a reference to the purposes set out in subsection (2).”

Order. The hon. Gentleman declared his interests in previous Committees, but I have been advised that he needs to specify what the interests are, as well as declaring them.

Order. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill indicates that this is an intervention. I thought he had sat down and wanted the Minister to respond. However, if it is an intervention, it is far too long.

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause 121 stand part.

Margot James: I enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, as it went beyond some of the detail we are debating here today, but I was disappointed with the  conclusion. I did not rest my argument it being just too difficult to organise such a database as proposed by Lord Mitchell; there are various reasons, chief among them being that we are here to debate personal data. A lot of the databases the right hon. Gentleman referred to as being of great potential value do not contain personal data. Some do, some do not: the Land Registry does not, Companies House does, and so forth. Also, the Information Commissioner has advised that this is beyond her competence and her remit and that she is not resourced to do the job. Even the job of defining what constitutes data of public value is a matter for another organisation and not the Information Commissioner’s Office. That is my main argument, rather than it being too difficult.

Liam Byrne: Happily, what sits within the scope of a Bill is not a matter for Ministers to decide. First, we rely on the advice of parliamentary counsel, which, along with the Clerks, was clear that this amendment is well within the scope. Secondly, if the Information Commission is not the right individual to organise this task—heaven knows, she has her hands full this week—we would have been looking for a Government amendment proposing a better organisation, a better Ministry and a better Minister for the work.

Margot James: I can only be the Minister I am. I will try to improve. I was not saying that Lord Mitchell’s amendment is not within the scope of the Bill; I was making the point that some of the databases and sources referred to by the right hon. Gentleman in his speech went into the realms of general rather than personal data. I therefore felt that was beyond the scope of the Information Commissioner’s remit.
I share the right hon. Gentleman’s appreciation of the value and the uniqueness of the NHS database. We do not see it just in terms of its monetary value; as the hon. Member for Edinburgh South made clear in his intervention, it has tremendous potential to improve the care and treatment of patients. That is the value we want to realise. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman and put it on record that it is not my place as a Minister in Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, or the place of the Bill, to safeguard the immensely valuable dataset that is the NHS’s property.

We debated clause 121 with schedule 13. For those who are interested, the Minister proposed that the clause should not stand part of the Bill, but the question remains “That the clause stand part of the Bill.” For the avoidance of confusion—I have only been here 26 years—those who, like the Minister, do not want the clause to stand part of the Bill should vote no.